NEWS RELEASE, 7/11/97

UC Berkeley reports a slight increase in number of minority students intending to enroll as freshmen

by Marie Felde

Berkeley -- As of June, 3,720 students have indicated they plan to enroll as freshmen at UC Berkeley for the fall '97 semester.

The total is slightly lower than last year because the campus offered admission to fewer students to compensate for unexpectedly high acceptance rates last year.

Despite fewer students overall, the number of Chicano and African American students who have filed statements of intent to register has risen slightly over last fall.

Among students who have indicated they will enroll as freshmen, 273 are African Americans. This represents 7.3 percent of the total who have filed statements of intent to register, up from 6.3 percent last fall.

In addition, 415 Chicano students have returned statements of intent to register. That represents 11.2 percent of the total, up from the 10.4 percent who last year indicated they would enroll.

Final freshman population statistics will be based on actual enrollment. The first day of classes for the fall semester is Aug. 26.

New admissions policies enacted by the University of California Board of Regents to end the use of race, ethnicity and gender as criteria in admissions decisions will go into effect for undergraduates with the entering class in fall '98. The ethnicity breakdown for UC Berkeley's fall '97 freshman class, based on statements of intent to register compared to SIRs for fall '96, is as follows:

African American, 7.3 percent (6.3 percent in '96)

American Indian, 0.7 percent (1.4 percent)

Asian American, 40.4 percent (38.3 percent)

Chicano, 11.2 percent (10.4 percent)

Latino, 2.3 percent (4.3 percent)

White, 28.2 percent (29.4 percent)

Other, 2.1 percent (1.6 percent)

Not given, 5.3 percent (5.3 percent)

Foreign, 2.5 percent, (3.1 percent)

The drop in the percentage of American Indians may appear more significant than it is because it is based on a very small number of students submitting statements of intent to register (25 in 1997 compared with 55 in 1996).

The drop in the number of Latino students, excluding Chicanos, can also be partly attributed to relatively small numbers. In addition, while overall freshman applications to UC Berkeley increased by 8.1 percent for fall '97, the number of applications from Latino students dropped 8.4 percent.

Further, the smaller percentage of Latino students may be attributed to an action initiated by the campus faculty admissions committee several years ago. That committee voted to gradually remove Latino students from affirmative action consideration in undergraduate admissions.

(Chicano is defined on the admissions application as Mexican-American; Latino as other Spanish-American including Cuban, Puerto Rican, Central American and South American. For UC Berkeley, the Asian American totals include Filipino, East Indian and Pakistani.)